Microsoft takes credit for new iOS features

The 200-odd new features in iOS 5 may be good news for Apple fans, but Microsoft's Joe Belfiore is wasting no time in letting everyone know just who thought of some of the more innovative first.

Belfiore has sent out a series of tweets name-dropping some of iOS 5's highlights, and reminding us all that Windows Phone 7 got there first.

Microsoft corporate VP for Windows Phone program management Belfiore certainly believes in the product he's selling. For while the rest of us were soaking up the new additions to iOS and working out how they would change things for iPhone and iPad users, Belfiore was going through the list of new features to see which ones he could claim Microsoft thought of first.

His first target was Apple's move to convert the hardware Volume Up button on the iPhone into a dedicated shutter release when using the camera – something Windows Phones have had for eight months already.

Then came two further tweets (here and here) that began “Feeling flattered today”, and listed various other new features in iOS 5 that Belfiore reckons are taken from the WinPho prayer sheet, including auto photo uploading, better notifications, Wi-Fi sync, built-in Twitter and more.

Full marks to Belfiore for keeping the faith, but we can't help but feeling that all he's really doing is telling the Windows Phone faithful that quite a few of the genuinely unique attractions of the Microsoft OS are now present on its chief rival too.

Pretty much all iOS features are nothing new and existed long before iOS. MS Mobile, Nokia, Symbian and proprietary phones OSes had subset of some.
Apple found appealing way to present them to end user, something that all previous OSes failed to do.

My Nokia N90 had that shutter button, and that was 6 years ago. And the N95 I had after that. and the N85 I had after that. It also auto-uploaded to flickr.

None of this stuff is new. Apple have innovated in the past, but of course you don't always need to innovate to improve your product. Sometimes you are in catchup mode, which is what iOS 5 seems to be.